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Ja'Shawn Terry, two-year-old son of Jamal and Shawna Terry of Hazelwood, frolics in the PPG Fountain Downtown.

Paul J. Gough

Southwestern Pennsylvania utilities coped well with the higher demands placed on it by the heat wave Friday, while some of the area's larger-volume customers were asked by the regional grid to conserve power.

The region posted its all-time record for electrical usage Thursday, regional electric grid operator PJM Interconnection said. PJM saw an uptick in demand in the Pittsburgh region and the Mid-Atlantic states early Friday and ordered some larger-scale users to reduce power consumption. Several Pittsburgh-area electrical users, including Pittsburgh International Airport and Carnegie Mellon University, were asked to lower their electrical consumption Friday afternoon to help cope with the demand.

The high heat -- up over 104-degree heat index -- knocked the Mon Incline out of service Friday afternoon. Some of the electronic controls overheated due to the temperature, said spokesman Jim Ritchie. Around noontime Friday, a circuit that feeds One Oxford Centre and other buildings Downtown went out. One Oxford Centre tenants were asked by Duquesne Light Co. to curtail all non-essential electrical usage. Just over 70 out of Allegheny Power's 715,000 customers had no electricity around mid afternoon and were expecting to return within an hour or so.

Both utilities reported only a handful of issues, and said they were confident their systems would handle the high demand.

"We're lucky that we have a pretty decent, robust generation in this part of western Pennsylvania, so we don't experience what they sometimes see in New York or Philadelphia," said Joey Vallarian, spokesman for Duquesne Light Co.

Both Duquesne Light, which serves 580,000 customers in Beaver and Allegheny County, and Allegheny Power said they were on alert for any issues and had staff on duty to make sure that repairs were done quickly.

"Crews are out there ready to respond should we need them," said spokesman Scott Surgeoner.

"Today when we saw the demand rising a bit more rapidly than we expected" the program was put into place in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, said PJM spokesman Ray Dotter. It's one of the many ways the grid operator can reduce consumption on hot weather days when the temperature and humidity boost electrical use.

"In the Pittsburgh area we were seeing some of that demand," Dotter said. Thursday's record was set at 158,450 megawatts of power consumption for the grid, which stretches from New England to Illinois. That's much higher than what's normal for a typical summer day, about 130,000 megawatts. Friday could be slightly lower with about 157,000 megawatts of consumption. Dotter said peak demand generally occurs between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Friday, compared to 5 p.m. between Monday and Thursday.

Demand is forecast to decline to about 144,000 megawatts Saturday, still higher than normal, before declining to 137,000 megawatts as the heat wave eases Monday.

Pittsburgh International Airport began its energy-conservation measures around 1:30 p.m. The airport cut down to one people mover between the parking lot and the landside terminal, as well as using only one pair of escalators there and then using only one train between the landside and airside terminals. People movers were also being shut in the airside terminal.

It's the first time that the airport has been asked to use these energy-conservation measures, said spokesman Jeff Martinelli. It's likely to last about six hours into Friday evening, but the airport was going to monitor the situation to make sure it didn't inconvenience travelers or cause problems as the traffic at the airport begins to thicken.

"We'll be monitoring," Martinelli said. "It's part of doing what we can to help the energy grid and the stresses that are being put on the power grid."

Carnegie Mellon University started cutting electrical consumption around noon Friday with an email to employees to turn off lights, shut off non-essential office equipment and go without fans if possible. Power to large, non-occupied areas at the university were also being reduced.

"We're happy to do whatever we can to help them," said CMU spokesman Ken Walters, who shut out his office lights. "Obviously, it's really hot out."

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